


Rest in my Arms

by ofsinnersandsaints



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, and jester being a really good girlfriend, basically just PTSD fjord dealing with the fall out of the ball eater, little bit of comfort too, tiny bit of angst?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23110921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofsinnersandsaints/pseuds/ofsinnersandsaints
Summary: Fjord’s got PTSD and Jester’s cool with it; bonus gossiping about beauyasha and the reading of romance novels
Relationships: Fjord/Jester Lavorre
Comments: 7
Kudos: 127





	Rest in my Arms

Jester got ready for bed and watched as Fjord went through his nightly ritual whenever they slept somewhere other than the hut.

As she took off her leathers, he prowled the room and made sure there was no way anyone could have snuck in earlier to hide under the couch or in the wardrobe. Jester had never felt unsafe in the chateau, but she understood Fjord’s fear and patiently waited him out.

“I caught Beau and Yasha making out.”

He looked up and Jester saw the quick quirk of his lips. “Yeah? ‘Bout time, I thought Nott was going to have lock them in a room somewhere with her knife.”

Jester giggled and climbed on top of her bed – their bed, she corrected herself – and thought about herself at fifteen feeling very alone. Teenaged-Jester would be very impressed Adult-Jester was sharing her childhood bedroom with a hot, sailor boyfriend.

“Caleb has the manacles too,” she remembered, unlacing her boots and kicking them onto the floor. “If things got really desperate, we could have always handcuffed them together.”

“Did they catch you spying on them?” he asked as he looked under the bed.

Jester wished she could take the fear from him, but for Fjord the monsters which could hide under there were real and they had killed him once before. Instead, she kept the conversation light and happy the way he did for her when memories of the Iron Angels came for her in her sleep.

How many times had he calmed her frantic heartbeat by telling her about his time at sea? They didn’t keep a tally of who had helped who more, it was just understood they’d always be there for each other.

“I wasn’t spying on them,” she argued, but didn’t make any attempt to sound convincing. “I was just making sure everything was good.”

“And everything was good?” Fjord asked as he reached into the bag of holding. Jester winced at the loud noise coming from the bell now in his hand, and waited until he’d hung it on the doorknob before answering his question.

She waggled her eyebrows, “Things were very good.”

He snorted and put a bell on each curtain rod, adjusting the rope so it hung in the middle of the curtain. If anyone tried to sneak into their room in the middle of the night, the bells would sound and wake them up. It wouldn’t be a ton of notice, but she and Fjord would at least be awake for whatever attack might be coming.

Fjord had tried to learn the alarm spell Caleb used all the time, but Fjord’s magic just wouldn’t work like that, so this was the next best thing. Last time they were here Jester made a point to talk to Bluud about the patrols around the chateau within Fjord’s hearing, hoping that knowing that might make him sleep a little better.

“I guess we won’t wake them up for breakfast in the morning,” Fjord teased as he sat at the edge of the bed. Jester shifted so she was sitting next to him, and he automatically held out his arm to her. It was a silly thing, and she couldn’t remember exactly how it had started, but part of their nightly routine was Jester helping Fjord out of his armor.

“We can have something sent up,” Jester suggested pragmatically as she tossed one of the arm pieces onto the nearby chair and started on the other one. “They’ll need to keep their strength up.”

“That’s very considerate of you, Jester.”

She ignored the slight tease in his voice and threw the second piece of armor to meet the other one and turned around so Fjord could undo tie at the back of her dress. It was easily something she could do herself – it was something she _had_ done herself – but it was such a couple thing to do and it always made her heart feel a little warm around the edges.

“Are you doodling tonight?” he asked as he got up to divest himself of the rest of his leathers.

Jester shook her head and pulled off her dress, but before she could throw it Fjord took it from her hands and hung it from one of the hooks near the wardrobe. “Nope, I’m too tired. I don’t know how teleporting is just as exhausting as actually travelling, but I’m always wore out by the time we arrive.”

“It’s the time change,” he told her as he walked around the room to turn down the lanterns, but she knew he was also taking one last look at the room before getting into bed. His fingers brushing lightly against the bells as if to test to make sure they were working.

He’d told her once the bells had been inspired by her. Apparently, he’d been thinking about something to hang from the doorknobs for a while, but wasn’t sure if shells would be loud enough to wake him up. Then she’d used Toll the Dead during a fight and immediately afterwards he bought the bells.

The first night he’d hung them up had been the best sleep either of them had gotten in weeks.

Jester climbed under the covers and when he joined her he was shirtless, which was her favorite version of Fjord. Unless he was in the hot tub back at the Xorhouse, he almost never went anywhere unless he was fully clothed. She liked to this was a Fjord only she got to see.

Jester waited until he was settled on his side of the bed and then practically laid on top of him. They hadn’t been sharing a bed long, and at first she had kept her distance because her skin was always just a little bit cool and she didn’t want to make him cold. But Fjord had pulled her across the bed one night and told her, very seriously and with a twinkle in his eye, that when it was hot like it was during the summer it was easier to sleep with her pressed right up against him.

She wasn’t sure if she believed him, and what would they do when it was winter? But Jester wasn’t about to argue, and pressed herself against the warmth of his bare skin, draping one of her legs over his.

As they lay in the silence of the chateau Fjord ran a finger up and down her arm, which was a pretty good indicator for Jester he wasn’t trying to sleep. His mind was focused on something else and she was just about to poke him when he spoke up in the darkness.

“Thanks, by the way.”

“For what, Fjord?”

There was a beat of silence before he answered. “For putting up with my nonsense.”

Insulted on his behalf, Jester put her hand on his chest – right over his scar – and lifted herself up so she could look down at him. “It’s not nonsense.”

He snorted like he didn’t believe her. “It’s a little bit nonsense.”

Jester huffed out a breath and rolled her eyes, hoped he could hear it in her voice if he couldn’t see it. “Does it help?”

“Help?”

“Checking the room, putting up the bells, does it help?”

“Well,” he fidgeted beneath her hands and looked away, just a little bit shy. “Yeah, it does.”

“Then it’s not nonsense.” She looked down at her hand and moved her fingers over the puckered skin. Magic healed wounds faster, but it didn’t take away the scars, instead it looked like it had been there for years instead of months. It looked healed over even though the damage was still fresh and raw for Fjord.

“No one blames you for being wary, for making sure what happened on the Ball Eater never happens again. Maybe one day you’ll be able to go to sleep without putting up the bells, but until that night happens it doesn’t both me to have them up. And if you never get to that place, that’s okay too. When we get our own place we’ll hang bells on every window and all the door knobs.”

Jester sat up, suddenly excited by the idea forming in her mind. “We’ll make them different notes! Whenever we walk from one room to another it’ll be like music! And then if someone does attack the house we’ll be like ‘That was a high c’ or however music works, and we’ll know exactly where they’re coming from. This is brilliant.”

When she refocused her gaze back on Fjord he was looking up at her with a soft smile, his eyes just a little unfocused. “What?”

“You’re perfect.”

Jester’s heart did a kind of ladylike faint in her ribcage, and she covered it up with bravado. “I know that, Fjord.”

He smiled at her like he knew what was going on inside of her, and knowing him like she did, he probably did. “I’m serious, Jester. You’re perfect for me.”

That was better, Jester thought. She didn’t like the idea of being perfect, that was too high a standard to keep up with, but she loved the idea she was perfect for _him_. The same way his steadiness and warmth was perfect for her.

She picked up his hand and held it in her lap. “I love you, Fjord.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d said it, but then the first time she’d uttered those words he’d been dead and unable to hear them. So now she said them as much as possible, to make sure he always knew and never forgot about much he was loved.

To the bottom of the sea and back.

“I love you too, Jester.” His thumb rubbed over the back of her hand, “Why don’t you get your book out and read a chapter?”

Jester grinned and got off the bed to get her latest book from the haversack. “I knew you were invested.”

“Well, the last time you read it Sir Harlan was standing on a ledge, fighting a zombie knight. How the hell is he going to get out of it?”

Jester snuggled back under the covers and opened the book to where she’d last left off. On nights when she had nightmares Fjord would sometimes read from books until she fell asleep, and on other nights she read from it just so they could have something happy and silly to think about before going to sleep.

Fjord liked to pretend he was indifferent to them, but she’d once caught him reading ahead to make sure the hero survived a very scary fight.

“Okay,” Jester rested her head on Fjord’s shoulder and picked up where they’d left off a few days ago. “Sir Harlan knew he was in an untenable situation, but he would not give up. Not when the fairest lady of the land was only two floors up, trying to get to him. He would not perish from this fiendish nightmare when he was so close to being with her again.”

And so she kept reading until the hero was no longer in danger, thanks to the Lady Isabella who was handy with a crossbow.

Eventually they fell asleep, wrapped around each other.

The bells were silent.


End file.
